cabbageboy

How can we not think of the mother of all bad heel turns? That being of course The Undertaker in late 2001, where he turned heel by forcing JR to kiss Vince's ass because he himself felt like he'd been kissing Vince's ass for years.

I can't remember but was there any sort of followup on that May 19th Raw with the RVD/Lawler/ECW storyline? It can't say much for the angle when I can't recall much about it after the debut, but then RVD was roughly a year away from being a major star in wrestling. The weird aspect of that Bartlett crap is that they removed Heenan for him! Who in their right mind thought it was a good idea to remove Bobby Heenan and hire a lame, unfunny comedian who was annoying and knew nothing about wrestling?

Agreed, Lushus. The Bulls kicked the crap out of LA in the 1991 Finals and even if Magic hadn't gotten HIV his time on top of the league was over. By the time the Shaq/Kobe era would have hit Magic would have been either retired on on his last legs. Let me back up now to that "worst champs in sports" question. The 1987 Twins are very likely the worst World Series winner ever, only winning because the AL had home field that year and the Metrodome sucked for visitors. If STL had home field that year they obviously take that series. I don't really know enough about hockey to name anyone the Worst Ever Champ. Now, the NFL. I think it almost has to be the 1980 Oakland Raiders. They were 11-5 with only a +68 differential on the season. Other nominees would be the 1988 49ers who were recordwise the worst SB winner ever 10-6, but I won't count them since I believe Montana was hurt that year (not to mention the 1989 team is one of the best ever). And putting aside their dominance afterwards, the 2001 Patriots were pretty much shit. The NBA has had a bunch of crappy teams that have won the title. The 1975 Golden State Warriors were mediocre (48-34), the 1977 Trailblazers weren't much either (49-33), the 1978 Washington Bullets have to be the worst ever though, winning the title with a 44-38 record (hell the Bullets had that same record in 1997...and were 8 seed fodder for the Bulls!). I would mention the 1995 Houston Rockets, but that team struggled due to injuries and once they got Drexler and had everyone healthy for the playoffs they were a pretty strong team.

Just watched the first ever Raw on 24/7 and it's quite the fun little show even today. Most of it is jobber squash stuff, but HBK/Moon is a good match. That said, 15 years later Rob Bartlett's commentary is beyond horrible. Is it just that I was 13 back then and ignored him or didn't care?

This Sharkboy angle is another logic defying TNA storyline. For instance, what are we supposed to think about it? To me it's either 1. Sharkboy is feigning all of these injuries and isn't really hurt, which is a strange thing for a face to do. Or 2. Cornette is an asshole and is making him wrestle when he's obviously too injured to do so.

Punk main eventing WM right now? I can't really see it. He needs to be on Raw or SD for a while before doing any serious PPV main eventing. I can actually see Edge costing Punk the ECW title though and then Chavo can be an amusing yes man to Edge on SD.

I don't think anyone will move for a while since after WKU went to D1 football they have done a freeze on teams jumping. Maybe Appalachian St. in the future? Let me back up to that NBA Jordan question. If Jordan doesn't come back in 1995 I think the Orlando Magic become a dominant force in the East for years, at least until Penny broke down physically. I've always thought Shaq got out of Orlando and went to the Lakers in part because he saw that the Magic had no hope in hell against the Bulls after the Bulls crushed them in 1996. Dare I say long term the league might have been better off? Cause Jordan became a crutch for the NBA to fall back on and once he retired in 1998 I don't think they have ever been the same. The league stayed fairly strong in 1994-95 without him, but then that's because the other teams still had everyone. Question: What if the Phoenix Suns hadn't have traded Dan Majerle in 1995? Would they have ever made the Finals again, or were Seattle and Utah too strong by that point?

Hogan was a LOT bigger draw than Austin. See, Austin had way more top level drawing help around him. The only time that Austin was ever flat out the #1 draw in the WWF was from WM 14 through Summerslam 1999. That really isn't a very long time period. After that HHH and The Rock were the top guys in the promotion, and when Austin got another extended run on top in 2001 his heel act didn't really draw. Some might say Austin drew more PPV money but look at how many more PPVs there are. Hell, Austin really wasn't much bigger of a draw than Hogan over the 1997-99 time period, much less all time. Hell, Hogan vs. Andre from The Main Event on NBC did a 16.0 or so broadcast rating. Hogan got them on NBC. Hogan got them on PPV.

I would rather they do some lame double DQ or draw at the Rumble and keep Jeff fairly hot without jobbing him. Cause Orton losing at the Rumble only to regain at No Way Out is just goofy booking. When Jeff does win the title it ought to be a longer term run.

Okay, fine. Want more reasons? How about these: 1. New England may well be the best team in history. They are undefeated and beat the piss out of the Chargers 38-14 already this year. 2. The Chargers have injuries out the wazoo. Rivers is questionable, Tomlinson and Gates will likely play but won't be 100%. Regarding the Turner/Belichick thing, a couple people gave me shit about it but it's still true. Anyone here going to try and claim Norv Turner is anywhere in the same league with Belichick? One thing to also note is that San Diego hasn't really played in a tough environment so far in the playoffs. They had Tennessee at home and the RCA Dome isn't really much of a home field I don't think (the Colts have lost 3 home playoff games under Manning). Now they have to go to Foxboro, and I can't see the warm weather Chargers faring well there.

I've thought for a long time that Killings could be a major draw in WWE. All it takes is the proper angle. I'd wait until Cena gets back and then debut Killings soon after and they can either team for a while and then do a breakup angle, or just debut Killings as a heel and feud him with Cena.

Well, there's probably a lot that needs to be done but the biggest thing I would do as GM of the Knicks is convince Lebron to sign once he goes free agent. Until then it's just suck time much like the Celtics until recently. In the same vein as the earlier Seahawks question, but more intriguing: How will history judge the Manning era Colts? Since they won the Super Bowl they can't be considered all time chokers really, would they be more like the football equivalent of the 1990s Braves?

To be honest Rey just has no heat left to main event. We've been there, done that, and it sucked really bad. Rey is a glorified Bob Holly this year at the Rumble, just a token JTTS type challenger there for filler. One thing....what is this Batista shit about him going to Raw to face Orton? What is this based on? We obviously know that HHH has to win the EC match by birthright or something and I think UT wins the Rumble. I don't want some convoluted crap to justify a 3 way at WM. Batista will just have to dick around with Lashley or someone.

HBK and Kennedy have fought so many times now that there's no way this can last until WM. Just have Shawn toss Kennedy from the Rumble or eliminate him from the EC and that's that. I bet Michaels ends up in a MITB or something, since there really isn't anywhere obvious to put him on the WM card.

Maybe it's because I've seen Jeff do that crazy stunt before (either in TLC matches or the Monster's Ball in TNA) but I wasn't as in awe of it. If anything I wondered why the idiot refs/officials didn't drag Orton out of there in the 5 minutes it took Jeff to climb, haha. And frankly I sure as hell don't want Hardy getting a lame ass transition run. It just shows lack of faith in him as a main event guy. I'd have him get screwed over at the Rumble, then he can win a MITB or #1 contender deal at WM, then he wins the belt later. I'm feeling a bullshit DQ at the Rumble, since I don't see them jobbing both Rey and Jeff on the same PPV.

I don't know if I had the Packers in the Super Bowl or anything, but I figured they would win the division. 1. They finished strong last year. 2. Super Bowl losers like the Bears tend to fall off big time the next year. I thought the Saints might go to the Super Bowl actually, so that pick was pretty far off.

Sadly it won't be for me since USA isn't available in HD in my area. CW is however so SD will be the #1 wrestling show to me personally in a couple of weeks.

Hornswaggle is amusing as long as they don't really push it all that hard. Just a silly segment or so on a show and it'll draw a laugh, but if he becomes a focal point that's when it becomes a problem. I personally think Austin doesn't want to wrestle Hogan because he knows flat out that if he wrestles Hogan he's jobbing there. I don't think Vince considers Austin on the same level as Hogan, and if so I would agree with Vince.

I should have had the nerve to flat out pick the Giants in that game, but I said Dallas 35-31 or something like that. The hilarity is that the entire 2nd half I kept ranting to my brother stuff like "Romo is due for his one really bad, game killer INT any time now." But he didn't throw it. In fact Dallas mostly dropped the ball. So it came down to the final drive and I thought "Okay, this is the last chance...Romo HAS to throw that horrible INT. But who do the Giants have to intercept him right now?" My brother replied "R.W. McQuarters?" About 2 minutes later Romo throws that goal line INT to McQuarters.

Yeah I finally got the Legends show updated and watched it tonight. Taz had no real point being there and Lawler needed to be there but since Foley hated Memphis and Hayes probably felt the same maybe they felt Lawler wasn't a wise choice. I don't think personally that territories really died out until about 10 years ago when the USWA went under. After that it really was just WWF, WCW, and ECW....with ECW really trying to not be a territory at that point but instead a national promotion. The Black Saturday show is interesting because it's one reason why WWE can say Raw is the longest running SE/wrestling program. George Championship Wrestling ran on TBS from 1972 to 1984 when Vince bought the slot. Then Crockett's NWA/WCW show was on from 1985-88, then Turner bought out Crockett and it was Turner's WCW from roughly 1988-2001. In other words there was no one time when TBS' wrestling program ran as long as Raw's 1993-current run, since while there was usually some wrestling program on TBS it wasn't the same promotion.

Well, as far as the Packers I thought they would win the division this year, figuring the Bears would fall off (but still get the wild card). I suppose I was basing this off of GB's excellent 4-0 finish to last season, but I've liked the Packers for years and was hoping they would do well anyway. Probably my favorite NFC team. In the playoff thread I joked that since Favre can't beat Dallas he needed someone to do it for him (Carolina did it in 1996) and the Giants did that today. I'm bewildered as to why anyone would think either San Diego or New York has a hope in hell though. The Chargers staggered out of Indy with a banged up Rivers, Tomlinson, Gates. The Giants have injuries to Madison and Burress. These teams have both maxed out what they can do. As much as it delighted me to see Tony Romo blow it, the Giants are only a 10-6 team with a +22 differential for the season. If they somehow beat GB they'd go on the immediate short list of Worst Ever Super Bowl Teams. This isn't saying the Giants won't be ready for a major run next year, but this is about as far as this group can go. Green Bay 38, New York Giants 21.

Well, this Colts/Chargers game didn't shock me today. Usually it's the game where everyone picks one team to win that turns out to be the surprise, but really this wasn't a big surprise. Early in the week I worried about two aspects of this one: 1. The Colts suck in the playoffs with a bye week, having lost previously to Tennessee and Pittsburgh. 2. The Colts struggle against the Chargers and the 3-4 defense. I still picked the Colts, mainly because Colts/Pats is infinitely more interesting than the shitfest we'll get next week, which can only produce comedy gold of seeing Norv Turner trying to coach against Belichick. Let's face it, at this point I might want the Patriots to lose but certainly not to this bleh 11-5 Chargers team. SD has had a nice little 8 game run, but next week the party is over something like 42-14. Might as well have the Giants win this one now so we can have 2 anticlimactic jobber squash games for the conf. title games next week.

What a horrible game this is going to be. NE already squashed the Chargers 38-14 earlier this year and this one won't be much different. And I know some people here will be like "OMG, Chargers end the Pats perfect season!" I counter with this: Bill Belichick.....Norv Turner. Nuff said.

I have to admit I laughed my ass off at Renny Harlin sinking down to directing a WWE film. Guys like Scott Wiper or John Bonito didn't direct anything notable before their WWE outings, but they also didn't bankrupt a studio.

Well, either way between Favre vs. Brady or Favre vs. Manning it is a massive ratings bonanza for the NFL. Thing is, I think the Colts would simply beat the Packers in that game and it's not as romantic somehow as the notion of the old, nearly washed up Favre going up against the invincible New England machine. I'd rather see the Giants than the Cowboys in the Super Bowl at this point. Truthfully, Dallas needs to just lose today and go away. I seriously don't want 2 weeks of Romo and Jessica Simpson hype leading to a Pats/Colts beatdown of the Cowboys. We know the Cowboys can't beat the Patriots and likely can't beat the Colts....but we know the Giants can play with New England and could likely give the Colts a game. And the Packers are a fresh matchup for either NE or Indy.